A Jacketing Concern is an historical novel set in London and on the Sussex coast during the
Regency period. At first glance the title might give prospective readers the
idea that the novel is about problems in the tailoring trade; however,
there is a much more sinister

explanation. “A jacketing concern” is a phrase from the slang of
the London underworld at the beginning of the 19th century. It means
someone has taken someone else’s wealth and position by underhand means. I hope
readers will be intrigued enough by that explanation and the odd juxtaposition
of a young chimney sweep and geese on the front cover to buy the book.

Just hire a local band playing any kind of music at
top decibel while diners try to talk over the din. Your guests will battle on
for a while but then resort to sign language, facial grimaces, and finally
silence before retreating to texting each other on their smart phones.

Want to see guests leave early from the gorgeous
wedding or anniversary celebration you carefully planned for months?

Simply hire the band from the gourmet restaurant to
come and play at the festivities--and have them play as usual at a high decibel
level.

Half the guests will find excuses to leave early – guaranteed!

Later you might find them across the street at
Starbucks trying to recover.

Want to bring a contentious community meeting to a
swift closure while not aggravating committee members?

Arrange the meeting at a community center, and
arrange for the local band to come and practice next door to the meeting. Pay
the players if you need to – it's worth the cost! Make sure there are no other
rooms for the band's practice except the one next to your meeting.

Before you know it, everyone will be so irritated
by the loud music they’ll be eager to adjourn.

These are just a few sure-fire tips to get rid of
customers, diners, guests, and committee members. They are guaranteed to work
without fail.

So let's make noise pollution the perfect solution
for you!

Mary Rabot doesn’t
have any prior writing experience to report. She’s found Brian’s workshops helpful
and is trying to learn good writing skills so she might be able to tell a
couple of stories she’s thought about for years. Mary lives in Mississauga and is
semi-retired from her work in healthcare management.

From picture books to young adult novels, this
weekly course is accessible for beginners and meaty enough for advanced
writers. Through lectures, in-class assignments, homework, and feedback on your
writing, we’ll give you ins and outs of writing for younger readers and set you
on course toward writing your own books.

We’ll have two published children’s
authors as guest speakers:

Sylvia
McNicoll is the author of over thirty books,
many of which have garnered awards and Her YA novel, Crush.candy.corpsewas shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis YA Crime Novel of the Year Award, the
Red Maple Award, the Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award, and the Snow Willow
Award, as well as being selected as one of the Ontario Library
Association's Best Bets and Resource
Links' Year's Best for 2012.

Most acclaimed, though, are her three middle grade books about
fostering guide dogs Bringing
Up Beauty, Beauty Returns, andA
Different Kind of Beautywhich won and were nominated
for many children’s choice awards. Her 2015 YA novelBest Friends
Through Eternitytells the story of an adopted Chinese teen for
whom an ill-fated shortcut along a rail track leads to the discovery of some
uncomfortable truths.

In 2017, Sylvia launched her new middle grade series The
Great Mistake Mysteries beginning withThe
Best Mistake Mysteryin January andThe
Artsy Mistake Mysteryin September and finishing withThe Snake
Mysteryin January 2018.

Jennifer Mook-Sanggrew up in Caribbean Guyana and moved to
Canada when she was fourteen. While reading bedtime stories to her two
sons, she fell in love with picture books and decided to write one of
her own. In one of Brian Henry's classes she found the beginnings of
a story. That story grew into the humorous
middle-grade novel Speechless, published by Scholastic in 2015.

Speechless won the Surrey Schools Book of the Year Award, was shortlisted for many other awards, and was recommended by the
Ontario Library Association, the Canadian Childrens’ Book Centre, the CBC, and the
TD Summer Reading Club. Jennifer’s spent the past year giving numerous school
and library presentations and meeting her many young readers.

In October, just in time for her to bring copies to our
class, Jennifer's picture book Captain
Monty Takes the Plunge will be
released by Kids Can Press.

Instructor Brian Henryhas
been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He
publishes Quick Brown Fox, Canada's most popular blog for writers, teaches
creative writing at Ryerson University and has led workshops everywhere from
Boston to Buffalo and from Sarnia to Saint John. Brian is the author of a
children’s version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde(Tribute
Publishing).But his proudest boast is that he’s has helped many
of his students get published.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Note:Don't ever miss a post on Quick Brown Fox. Fill
in the “Follow Brian by Email” box in the right-hand column under my bio, and
get each post delivered to your Inbox. Also, if you’re not yet on my
newsletter, send me an email, including your locale, to: brianhenry@sympatico.ca~Brian

There are
some big changes at Transatlantic
Literary Agency, including the hiring of a new agent, Marilyn.

Marilyn Biderman has joined Transatlantic as a senior literary agent. She will close her own firm, bringing
her current roster of authors, including Katherena Vermette (The Break), to Transatlantic.
Marilyn Biderman Literary Management was established in 2010, following Marilyn’s
tenure as vice-president, rights and contracts, at McClelland & Stewart.
While at M&S, Biderman sold internationally the works of authors such as
Leonard Cohen, Alistair MacLeod, Anne Michaels, and Madeleine Thien.

Marilyn is seeking literary fiction;
sweet-spot fiction, that is, accessible but literary in intent (often found at
book clubs); straight-up mysteries and thrillers; and women’s commercial and
historical fiction.

“I love memoir with an utterly unique story
and brilliant writing; narrative non-fiction on compelling and newsworthy
topics that anticipate trends; expert nonfiction of wide appeal from authors
with established social media platforms; and biographies of fascinating lives,”
says Marilyn. “I don’t handle children’s books, except for young adult novels
with cross-over appeal (very selectively, and only by referral); or poetry,
screenplays, science fiction, paranormal, and fantasy for adult readers.”

Attach a brief sample of
your work (up to 1,500 words) as a Word of PDF file.

Transatlantic also has
ten other literary agents accepting clients, both adult and children’s authors.
See the full list and detailed submission information here.

In other news, Transatlantic
co-founder and president David Bennett has sold his controlling interest
in the business to agency partner Samantha Haywood. Haywood, who joined the
agency in 2004, has been a partner since 2013, and was promoted to
vice-president last April. Bennett will serve as chairman emeritus, with
Lynn Bennett, the agency’s other co-founder, remaining as treasurer.

Also, Transatlantic has hired
Rob Firing to head up a new speakers division. Rob was formerly senior director
of publicity, communications and speakers’ bureau at HarperCollins Canada. Rob will negotiate speaking engagements for
both Transatlantic authors and other
talent, and if any of that other talent needs a literary agent, Rob will do
that, as well. He’s already signed Paulette Bourgeois (Franklin the Turtle) and
HaprerCollins Canada authors Karen Le Billon (French Kids Eat Everything) and Zarqa Nawaz (Little Mosque on the Prairie)
to the agency’s speakers’ bureau.

Simon & Schuster editor Patricia Ocampo

If you’re
interested in and finding an agent or publisher (someday soon or down the
road), don’t miss our “How to
Get Published” mini-conference,
with literary agent Martha Webb, author Hannah McKinnon, and HarperCollins
editor Michelle Meade on Saturday, Nov 18, in Guelph (see here).

You’ll also want to
register for the “From the Horse’s Mouth” seminar, with literary agent Stacey Donaghy, House of Anansi Press
editor Douglas Richmond, and Simon & Schuster managing editor Patricia
Ocampo on Saturday, Dec 2 at Ryerson University in Toronto (see here).

Also, starting soon, Brian Henry is leading a full range of writing courses, introductory
to advanced, but at this point, only two classes still have space:

Brian is also leading a “Writing
Kid Lit” Saturday workshop, on November 11 in London (see here).

And be sure not to
miss the “Writing a Bestseller”
workshop with New York Times #1
bestselling author Kelley
Armstrong on Saturday, Oct 21, in Oakville
(see here).

Anansi editor Douglas Richmond

Also, in the fall,
Brian will lead a “How to
Make Yourself Write” workshop
on Saturday, Oct 14, in Toronto (see here), a “Secrets of Writing a Page-turner” on Saturday, Oct 28, in Caledon at the Bolton
Library (see here), “Writing with Style” on Saturday, Nov 4, in Barrie (see here)
and “How to Build Your Story” on Saturday, Nov 25 in Burlington (see here).

For more information or to reserve a spot in any workshop,
retreat, or weekly course, email brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Navigation
tips: Always check out the labels
underneath a post; they’ll lead you to various distinct collections of
postings. Also, if you're searching for a literary agent who represents a
particular type of book, check outthis post.

Monday, September 25, 2017

Mom spent two weeks trying to talk me out of
it. My Baba was completely horrified when
I confided in her what I was planning to do. Other people in my life were
shocked and skeptical as well.

“It won’t
work out for you,” they warned, shaking their heads. “Think it through some
more.” No, I wasn’t plotting a murder or a jewellery store robbery. I wasn’t
going to kidnap a rich person’s kid and hold them for ransom. I wasn’t going to
start a revolution. I was going to get my hair cut short.

Why such
panic over something as inconsequential as hair? We all have hair. There’s no
shortage of hair in the world. It grows back when we cut it and when we leave
it alone we can use it as a makeshift ladder ala Rapunzel. We can dye it and braid it, shape it and sell it.
Hair is abundant and hair is malleable, so why all this uproar over mine? It
was my hair and I wanted to cut it. It was on my head so it was mine to dispose
of. What crime was I committing?

I soon
learned that everyone’s a lawyer when it comes to a woman’s body and any
changes she wants to make to it.

“Oh, but
Emily...”

Wait for
it.

“You
won’t look like a girl anymore!”

Did you
just sigh, like I did on the inside when I first heard those words? It’s a
laughable notion, that your gender identity is somehow connected to the length
of your hair. But for some, it’s sacred, the tradition that boys have neat,
trim, militaristic short hair and girls have long, flowing, romantic locks, end
of discussion.

It’s a
uniform, basically. One that can get you persecuted if you rebel against it,
like that one time in boarding school when I got kicked out of the cafeteria
for wearing the wrong kind of stockings under my kilt. I had to race back to my
dormitory to change if I wanted to eat that day. A small journey into
individualism cost more than half of my lunch time, and it seemed that if I
dared repeat the offense there would be an even bigger price to pay.

According
to the older generation and the media, any girl with short hair was
automatically a butch lesbian. Or a workplace dragon lady. Or both. They were
stern rather than sweet, demanding rather than accommodating, and they just looked
too darn masculine, as if that were a
bad thing, a violation of the natural order.

It all
drizzles down to that unshakeable fear among conservatively-minded people of
having somehow produced a generation of women who weren’t going to marry men
because they resembled men too much, through their ambitions, through their
accomplishments, and through their boyish haircuts. I can assure you, quite
happily, that men played no part in my decision to cut my hair short. What men would
think of my hair wasn’t even an afterthought. If anything, it was other girls
who influenced my decision. But it was my own desperation for freedom that had
the final say on the matter.

I used to
have hair that was more than ten inches long. It fell down my back when it was
loose. I could sweep it up into a long, bouncy ponytail or into a high or low
bun. It was a rippling mane of dark chocolate brown, thick and wavy ... and I
hated it.

I hated brushing it. I hated shampooing it. I
hated having to spend an hour blow-drying it, just to get it from sopping wet
to tolerably damp. It was always tangled. It was always getting caught in coat zippers.
Straightening it with a flat iron could only tame it for a grand total of
twelve minutes before it started to curl again into something that resembled
Albert Einstein’s eyebrows.

I had a
battalion of clips, ties, and pins that fought the daily battle of keeping it
off my face just so I could function and get through the day. If they failed, I
would have to run to the bathroom to tuck some hair back into place or yank
some hair out of the iron grasp of a zipper or collar or earring. I don’t need
to tell anyone how much that hurt, because we’ve all been there, but me? I was
always there.

I lived
in hair hell, the tenth circle of purgatory that Dante forgot to mention. My
hair was my curse, the plague that sprung from my scalp. I was always asking
myself, “How did other girls do it?” By that I meant, how did other girls keep
their hair so straight, so shiny, so perfect, all day long?

I was in
high school in the 2000s. The hairstyle in vogue was long, flat-ironed hair
with blonde or red highlights. My classmates proudly flitted through the
hallways with hair ironed and dyed in exactly this way, while mine ... was
sloppily pulled back with a big, chunky plastic clip. That was me as a
teenager. I was a dork who couldn’t take care of her hair properly. It was all
wrong, and people noticed.

“Who do
you mean you have no time to straighten your hair? Just wake up earlier to do
it! I get up at six!” I could barely motivate myself to get out of bed at seven
in the morning for a bowl of cereal, let alone fight a futile fight with my
hair. An hour of sleep lost for my hair to explode into a cloud of frizz on the
way to school? It wasn’t worth it.

I tried
to make up for it in other ways, because God help you if you were a girl and didn’t
make the slightest effort to be feminine in high school. I bought expensive MAC
lip glosses. I wore my nicest, most sparkly earrings to draw attention away
from my atrocious bun. I dusted my eyes with blue and purple eyeshadows. I
learned to make straight lines with a stick of eyeliner even when my
unconfident hand was shaking.

But at
the end of the day, after wiping off the makeup, taking off the earrings, and
letting my hair loose from the prison designed for its own good, I knew that I
had failed. I was not a girl who had style. I was a girl who had ugly hair, and
I was certain that it was always going to be this way for me. I was always
going to be the least beautiful, the least successful, and the least admired
girl in the room, because of my stupid, stupid hair.

For a
young, vulnerable, insecure teenager, this is the kind of realization that cuts
deep.

Deciding,
at least, to get my hair cut short was a breakthrough. A liberation. A choice
that dramatically changed my life for the better. I was in my first year of
university, and it was a year for changes and new freedoms. I was living away
from home for the first time. I was eating what I liked, reading what I liked,
going where I liked, and, most importantly, dressing
how I liked.

Free at
last from my stiff high school uniform, with its too-tight trousers, and starchy
see-through white shirts, I embraced delicious comfort in my wardrobe. I had
cozy sweaters and dark jeans for the autumn and winter, cotton dresses and
leggings for the spring and summer. Cute ballet flats on dry days and warm,
sturdy boots for wet ones.

Being
comfortable was the defining feature of my look, and eventually that philosophy
crawled upwards to my head, where my hair, still pinned up and undealt with,
resided, and waited. Other girls at university had short hair and I couldn’t
stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop staring at them.

I want that, I
thought, watching them tuck their neat, sweeping bangs behind their ears and
slip on the knitted beanie hats that made them look so cool and hip and
bohemian and modern without a curl
out of place. Where had all these girls been in high school when I needed to
see them, when I needed to know there were other options besides the tyranny of
the flat iron? What had made them brave enough to just be done with it and chop
it all off? Were they, like me, victims, and recent escapees, of the
legislation for female beauty and conformity?

At this
point I’d had enough and was sick to death with waking up in my dorm room with
a mouth full of drool-soaked hair. I’d spent my whole life ruled by its length
and its refusal to cooperate with me. I was done. I was tired. I was ready.

Mom cried
at the hair salon. I had to force myself not to look sideways at her as the
hairdresser braided my locks into two tight ropes that would be promptly sliced
off afterwards. I couldn’t blame her for crying. Her attachment to my hair was
pure nostalgic sentimentality, an attachment to the days of my childhood, when she
would wrestle with and yank at my stubborn tangles, trying to make something of
them, with the best of intentions and a maternal infatuation with the dark,
glossy shade of brown inherited from her Italian and Greek ancestors.

As a mother,
she’d enjoyed that sort of challenge, while I remember my scalp aching, my
tears leaking. I didn’t want to cry over my hair anymore, and I didn’t want her
to cry either.

“Mom,
Mom, it’s fine,” I kept reassuring her, unable to reach out and squeeze her
hand from my salon chair. I wanted it to be over so badly. It was like waiting
for a stubborn baby tooth to come out. Make
room, won’t you? You’re done here, kid. The adult tooth needs to grow in now. When
the moment finally came, down came the scissors to do their dirty work, and my
braids hung limp in the hairdresser’s hand, I was speechless and beaming,
transfixed by the sight of myself in the mirror.

My face.
It had a shape. My hair … had a style.

My braids
were sealed in an envelope and shipped off to make a wig for a cancer patient
whom I hoped would have a happier relationship with my hair than I did. The
reviews for my new haircut were raving. Mom’s tears dried up when she saw how
much short hair suited me. My Baba gushed about how pretty and grownup I
looked. Friends at university raced up to me to praise my new do.

Where had all the skepticism and prejudice gone?
Had it been packaged up and mailed away along with my braids? Did the courage
to go through with the cutting wave off any agency anyone else had over my
hair? I had proven myself, it seemed. I had claimed complete license to my own
hair. It was a beautiful feeling, to shed my fur, to be lighter and freer, in
more ways than one. I wish that every woman gets to experience this feeling at least
once in her lifetime.

Of
course, a few critics lingered. I went on two dates with a boy at university.
By the third date he had the nerve to tell me that I would look sexier with
long hair. I didn’t text him back again. I don’t need that kind of extra
weight.

Emily Zarevich lives in
Burlington, Ontario. She attended Wilfrid Laurier University, where she studied
English literature, and went on to Humber College where she studied TESL/TEFL
(Teaching English as a Second Language). She used to write creative pieces for
her school’s arts magazine Blueprint
and now writes for fun.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

With
the baseball playoff season coming soon, this seems like a good time for an
action-mystery based on fantasy baseball. Over 2.5 million people play and
gamble on fantasy baseball; I’ll be pleased if merely half of those read my
novel.It’s available through Amazon, Create Space and Kindle. Thank
you.

Gary Lepper

A Deadly
Game

Professional baseball players in multiple cities
have been injured inexplicably—and two have died. When former police detective
David Kenmuir tries to learn why, he becomes trapped in a collision between the
make-believe world of fantasy baseball leagues and the very real world of
crime-for-hire. In order to escape from it, he must end it—and manage tostay alive in the midst of lethal
conflicts between a mob boss and his maverick subordinate, and between himself
and a nemesis from his past. It won’t be easy.

You can buy A Deadly Game
on Amazon here.
Check out an article about A Deadly Game
in NY Sports Dayhere.

This is your chance to take up
writingin
a warm, supportive environment. This course will open the doorto
all kinds of creative writing. We’ll visit short story writing and children’s
writing, writing in first person and in third person, and writing just for fun.
You’ll get a shot of inspiration every week and an assignment to keep you going
till the next class. Best of all, this class will provide a zero-pressure,
totally safe setting, where your words will grow and flower.

Instructor Brian
Henryhas been a book editor and creative writing
instructor for more than 25 years. He publishes Quick Brown
Fox, Canada's most popular blog for writers, teaches creative writing
at Ryerson University and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo
and from Sarnia to Saint John. But his proudest boast is that he's helped many
of his students get published.

Brian Henry has been a book editor, writer, and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He teaches creative writing at Ryerson University. He also leads weekly creative writing courses in Burlington, Mississauga, Oakville and Georgetown and conducts Saturday workshops throughout Ontario. His proudest boast is that he has helped many of his students get published.